Beer in 12 fluid ounce bottles is sold in carrier baskets. The carrier basket is a paperboard container with two rows having three compartments each. Each bottle is held in a separate compartment. The necks of the bottles extend above the body section of the container and a handle of the container is positioned between the rows of bottle necks. In the case of small bottles of wine, e.g. containing 240 ml, the container is commonly made to hold four bottles.
Carrier baskets are made by die cutting paperboard sheets, gluing and folding the sheets into flat condition for reasons of shipping and warehousing space and efficiency. The carrier baskets must be expanded from their flat condition to be fully open in order to insert the bottles. The carrier basket has a locking hook to securely hold the open condition prior to inserting the bottles. In the traditional bottle packaging operation, the carrier baskets have been expanded manually. It will be understood that manual expanding of the carrier baskets is highly labor intensive.